A Good Module to Lead Into Expedition To Ravenloft

[Brother Willi]

Fair warning, this discussion will contain some spoilers. I'll it hide it where possible, but read at your own peril.

I want to run a Pathfinder version of Expedition to Ravenloft. It remains one of my favorite 3.5 modules (up there with Red Hand of Doom) and I have a new party of experienced players who would love to explore it.The kicker is this: I'd like to build up to it . Make it more of an adventure path than simply a hook and then the adventure. One of the great things about Expedition to Ravenloft is that it has a hints at a greater evil plan. I'd like the lead-in to really build up that evil plan so that battle with Strahd is more compelling.

Since my time to prepare is relatively limited, and since there's a wealth of great adventures available, I thought I'd turn to the community and see what ideas there were. I have several modules already that I'd be glad to use, and I'd love to hear what suggestions there are. Here are my thoughts:

Carrion Hill:

Adventure Discussion:

The lurking evil monster fits in with the ancient evil of Strahd. I could see the cultists in this adventure being manipulated by Strahd as part of his grander schemes of empire - to fit this, include notes from Master of Ravenloft to the villains of the adventure encouraging them to commit great evil.

Feast of Ravenmoor:

Adventure Discussion:

Ravenmoor to Ravenloft. Seems fitting, no? Here, I'd tweak it so that the corrupted worship has a more vampiric feel. This would be easy with the prevalence of ticks, mosquitos, and stirges. The villagers would have been led astray by the corruption of Strahd, rather than the deception of an evil deity.

Skinsaw Murders:

Adventure Discussion:

Not a module per-se, but a classic. Lead in with a modified sandpoint adventure, and spring the Foxglove horrors on the party when they least expect it. Instead of the runes feeding a Runelord, it's part of Strahd's evil plan to feed his growing undead empire.

What other modules do you suggest? What modifications do you think would work?

[Power Word Unzip]

I can't remember the target APL you're supposed to be at when beginning EtCR from the start as a full campaign-scale adventure - I seem to recall it being 6th or 7th level, though. If so, "Skinsaw Murders" is scaled quite well to that, since the PCs should easily hit one of those XP milestones by the end of it.

Skinsaw Murders spoiler:

I also like your idea for tying in Strahd's gathering of power to the runewell beneath Foxglove Manor.

Because Barovia is very rural and insulated, you may want to consider moving some of the action and drama in AP #2 out of Magnimar. The sequence in the corn fields fits in perfectly; the urban elements with the townhouse, the mill, and the clock tower are less setting-appropriate, in my opinion. You can still leave those encounters in, of course, perhaps by creating a series of small villages that have numerous cult members plotting in cohesion and featuring the types of structures mentioned in the adventure.

Since you're going all-out with a horror campaign, and given the small-town feel of Barovia, if you wanted to play this thing all the way up from 1st level, I'd recommend taking a look at "The Haunting of Harrowstone" (AP #43, book 1 of Carrion Crown). Ravengro (which also fits your naming convention!) has that small Balkan village aura about it, and the ruined prison and its many haunts are thematically appropriate. Of course, if you drop Ravengro into Barovia as Ravenloft mythos describes it, you'll want to make it a much darker place and keep the threshold for earning the trust of the villagers VERY high.

Harrowstone spoiler:

You can also explain away the Whispering Way's attempts at capturing the vigilant soul of the warden and freeing the evil spirits of the prison as yet another of Strahd's plots to amass necromantic power.

[Haladir]

This is how my current campaign started out, before I'd gotten into the whole Golarion thing. I was going to put Castle Ravenloft and Barovia in the mountains in southern Varisia, a few days ride from Ravenmoor.

Using the recently-released Inner Sea World Guide as my only source on Golarion, I started to sketch out some homebrew adventures in Varisia, starting with a goblin raid on Sandpoint, then a walking dead adventure involving ghouls, then perhaps something involving the spirit of The Chopper, the now-dead serial killer in Sandpoint. The party would eventually get to Ravenmoor to investigate some weirdness going on there (I was planning on an homage to the Hitchcock flick The Birds, and then segue into Expedition to Castle Ravenloft.

While looking for advice on these boards, several posters suggested that I had very closely paralled the first two books of Rise of the Runelords, and might save myself some work if I just ran those. So, I bought them, and ran them. My players loved them, and they were a joy to run!

I changed the BigBad in Skinsaw Murders to be a vampire, acting as a scout for Strahd. However, once I began converting EtCR to PF rules, I had a startling discovery: it's actually a very incoherent mini campaign, with lots of interesting set pieces that don't mesh very well. The plot is murky, the encounters aren't well-designed, and in short, I found it to be a let-down compared to Paizo's APs. (I had bought the rest of Rinelords and Crimson Throne since I started, and then started subscribing to the APs).

Ultimately, I dropped the Ravenloft idea, and am running Runelords instead. I should probably change the logo of my campaign on our blog to take out Strahd...

Anyway, good luck!

[Galnörag]

Power Word Unzip wrote:

Since you're going all-out with a horror campaign, and given the small-town feel of Barovia, if you wanted to play this thing all the way up from 1st level, I'd recommend taking a look at "The Haunting of Harrowstone" (AP #43, book 1 of Carrion Crown). Ravengro (which also fits your naming convention!) has that small Balkan village aura about it, and the ruined prison and its many haunts are thematically appropriate. Of course, if you drop Ravengro into Barovia as Ravenloft mythos describes it, you'll want to make it a much darker place and keep the threshold for earning the trust of the villagers VERY high.

** spoiler omitted **

just a double thumbs up for Haunting of Harrow Stone